Follow Us On

Login



“We
should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once.” – F.
Nietzsche



“Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from
the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with
ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance
with the pen?”- F. Nietzsche

Links

Check out the New Existentialists site: the latest in existential psychology here

Blog

Since a short blog post cannot possibly, not even closely, encompass all the fascinating stuff running in the background in one’s mind as psychotherapy takes place, here are just a few examples of mind processes that are underway as therapy unfolds. Often what happens in psychotherapy is a sort of “slowing down” of the usual way of thinking and perceiving things. Slowing waaaaay down. I don’t mea...

Text by: Dr. Alina Sotskova Illustration: Armin Mortazavi “How is talking about my problems going to help? The problem is still there whether I talk about it or not!” “Why would I see a psychologist – it’s just talking. It’s not going to do anything for me.” “I don’t need therapy – I need a solution to my problems!” These questions can come up for people when they are seeing a psychotherapis...

What does Dali’s confusing, compelling, at times mystical, at times disturbing imagery mean? According to Dali’s flippant answer to the question regarding the meaning of Persistence of Memory, it merely represents melting camembert cheese. Yet, at the time of the painting, in the early 1930s, Dali was fascinated with Freudian psychoanalysis. Of course, in psychoanalysis, there are no accidents of ...

To continue this little thought experiment, let’s take abortion as an example. Have you grown up your whole life believing that abortion is murder? That it is wrong and morally reprehensible? Most people in the current Canadian society say “no,” but some would clearly say “yes.” How do I know this?I see the protestors against abortion in front of the abortion clinic. Their message is very clear. W...

Only the privileged few, the “supermen” above the law, may commit murder, or at least this was the claim of Loeb and Leopold who committed arguably one of the most controversial crimes of the 20th century. When I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s play about the famous case, I became engrossed in this case because it just so happens that the murderers cited...

Just a few days ago, Broken Rhythms Dance Company, my photographer friend Ian Sparks and I put together a very experimental event. The opening night for Ghosts of Rorschach photography series, for which Ian and I created images of Rorschach ink blots from dancers’ bodies, was meant to mix a few things right up. These “things” to be mixed up were: psychology and dance, science and art, audience and...

This post also appeared on the New Existentialists, here.Kirk Schneider (2008), an existential psychologist, writes that people in the current Western, post-modem culture have fallen into a dangerous game of "either-or:" either they see themselves in a reductionist, mechanistic way, a cog in the interconnected global machine, or they see themselves as omnipotent heroes of the post-modern age, so s...

There was once a tiger who lived in an ancient forest that flourished with life and teemed with magnificent colors.This tiger was the keeper of the forest and was strong and fast; yet, he was also content and compassionate. He shared only what was given by the forest. Tiger walked everyday through the forest and every day the birds would gracefully perch upon his back as he surveyed and absorbed ...

What grinds your gears? Stepping on gum when you bought new shoes? Your neighbour’s taste in music at 5am? Waking up to interesting aromas wafting gently into your bedroom from your cat’s litterbox, like a sweet deathly wave of chemical weaponry? Yes, those things grind my gears, too. But you know what else grinds my gears? When people with great ideas are misunderstood or, at least, when people ...

What do contemporary dance, status updates, and mood rings have in common? They are all vehicles for public displays of emotion. But have you noticed that the range for the emotions people express with this type of media tends to be somewhat stereotyped? Here we have the case of portraying either the emotional turmoil of wretched remnants of a soul flapping in the wind or the illusion of perfect f...